THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 5, 1995 TAG: 9508040080
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
HOW DETERMINED were the Japanese in 1945 to turn back an Allied invasion of their homeland?
If it came, said Thomas Tanemori, he and the other children in his Hiroshima neighborhood were prepared to confront the invaders with sticks of sharpened bamboo.
Tanemori's second-grade teacher showed her students how to put a fine point on the 6-foot-long bamboo shafts.
``In the playground, standing like scarecrows, were straw effigies of American soldiers,'' he said. Bayonet practice in Japan 50 years ago began at the age of 8.
Tanemori was in Los Angeles recently at the invitation of Showtime, to tell members of the television press what it was like to be in Hiroshima on an August morning 50 years ago when a B-29 with ``Enola Gay'' painted on its nose dropped an atomic weapon named ``Little Boy.'' The explosion destroyed almost 40 percent of the city's population.
The headline on Page 1 of The New York Times shouted the news.
``Missile is Equal to 20,000 Tons of TNT; Truman Warns Foe of Rain of Ruin.''
In an unforgettable moment on the recent Television Critics Association press tour, Tanemori shared the stage at a press conference with Robert Christy, a physicist who helped to build what President Harry S. Truman called ``the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.''
There they were, elbow-to-elbow, the citizen of Hiroshima left sightless by the blinding flash of the atomic bomb and the tall, courtly scientist who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer to develop a weapon that ended World War II in one bold stroke.
Christy had a major role in creating the weapon which left Tanemori blind and crippled. The two sat not as enemies now, but as aging men who had experienced a turning point in history together, and wanted to talk about it before the memories fade. Their experiences are reflected in a Showtime original miniseries, ``Hiroshima,'' which premieres Sunday night at 8.
Tanemori recalls the hour (8:15 a.m.) when the bomb detonated 43 seconds after it was dropped. ``I was standing by a window. The entire left side of my body was burned. The skin cracked. The physical pain and suffering healed. But the psychological and emotional pains continued for many decades.''
Christy had experienced an atomic blast, too, but in the safety of a bunker in the New Mexico desert where Oppenheimer's team had assembled two atomic bombs or ``gadgets'' as they were called in code.
``I was deeply impressed by the spectacle of what I saw in the desert,'' he said. ``It was the birth of a very destructive weapon.''
With the 50th anniversary of the Enola Gay's mission to Hiroshima here, television has done quite well in giving Americans a history lesson about the last days of World War II.
TV also has stirred up a controversy that has stretched through the decades. Were the Allies right in dropping not one but two atomic bombs on people who were on the verge of surrendering?
``The use of the atomic bomb to end a war that had already produced great carnage was justified,'' said Christy. ``I believed that 50 years ago, and I believe it now.''
Tanemori, the victim, the 8-year-old left orphaned by the bomb when six members of his family died in Hiroshima, says the use of such a weapon of horror could never be justified.
``To forgive what the American people have done to Hiroshima is beyond my powers.''
In ``Hiroshima,'' which features Kenneth Walsh in the pivotal role of Truman, a common man who followed the larger-than-life leader Franklin D. Roosevelt into office, you will see half-feature film, half-docudrama. The producers make good use of 1940s newsreel footage spliced into freshly filmed scenes.
The Japanese actors speak Japanese.
In one scene, the recollections of Thomas Tanemori sharpening his bamboo stick when he was an 8-year-old come to life.
At a Tokyo cabinet meeting eight days before the bomb falls, the generals and admirals resist suggestions from ministers that it is time to negotiate a peace. From Gen. Korechika Anami: ``If the invasion comes, we will throw everything we have against the enemy - men, material, the kamikaze, children with bamboo spears.''
Historians tell us that the invasion of Japan - code name Operation Downfall - was expected to begin in November of 1945 with U.S. leaders anticipating 90,000 American casualties in a battle of 90 days or longer.
The mission of the Enola Gay 50 years ago made certain that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, lying at rest now in Norfolk, would never have to lead 13 American divisions into battle on Japanese soil.
There's more on this historic event on the small screen:
At 7:30 p.m. Sunday, TLC has a little primer for history buffs in ``The Atomic Bomb: History's Turning Points.''
The Learning Channel on Sunday at 8 p.m. rounds up all the key dates and players in the dawn of the atomic age into one three-hour film, ``Day One.'' There's a corking good performance by Brian Dennehy as the general (Leslie R. Groves) who pushed the scientists to complete the bomb before the German scientists broke through.
At 8 p.m. Sunday, The History Channel and A&E simulcast a 90-minute special about the birth of the atomic age, ``The Atomic Bombing of Japan.''
The History Channel, with host Roger Mudd leading the way, debates Truman's call to bomb Japan with the great weapons in ``Hiroshima: The Decision to Drop the Bomb'' on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. A&E will simulcast the program.
On Tuesday at 9 p.m., Public Television and WHRO take up the question of why a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Was it to impress the Russians? The program is ``Rain of Ruin: The Bombing of Nagasaki.''
On Wednesday at 9 p.m., WHRO's remembrances of the war's last days continue with ``The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb.''
Home Box Office in September brings Truman's role in ending the great war into a sharp focus. Academy Award nominee Gary Sinise stars in ``Truman.'' ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO OF THE ATOMIC BOMB COURTESY OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
[Color Photos]
SHOWTIME
Kenneth Welsh, (TOP) plays President Harry truman and Serge
Christiannsens plays Stalin in "Hiroshima," beginning Sunday at 8
P.M. on Showtime.
THE LEARNING CHANNEL
Brian Dennehy (TOP) stars as Gen. Leslie R. Groves and David
Strathairn plays Dr. Robert Oppenheimer in "Day One," Sunday on The
Learning Channel.
by CNB